


cry havoc (let slip the dogs of war)

by afire



Category: Girl Meets World, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/F, Teen Wolf AU, but also angst yes you're welcome, honestly i don't know what this is just hit me in the face, its mostly fluff, teen wolf crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-08
Updated: 2016-04-08
Packaged: 2018-05-31 20:04:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6485653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afire/pseuds/afire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not a happily-ever-after, but they'll take what they can get. You've heard this one a million times.</p>
            </blockquote>





	cry havoc (let slip the dogs of war)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [we howl to the moon](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5038690) by [BerryliciousCheerio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BerryliciousCheerio/pseuds/BerryliciousCheerio). 



> it's a teen wolf au but you don't really need to understand teen wolf to understand this

Maya Hart is four years old when the hunters come. They take her parents, but their orders didn't include a child.

Maya Hart is four years old when Bennett McCall sees her wandering the streets and takes her into his pack.

Maya Hart is four years old when the line between fox and wolf blurs indefinitely.

Maya Hart is four years old when she loses two parents but gains eight more.

Everyone loves the fiery kitsune immediately.

**//**

Riley Matthews shows up a year later; they find her in a park, shaking and scared. Maya takes one look at her and decides right then and there that she's going to protect her forever. Riley is small and quiet and doesn't really tell them much about her past, but she smiles when Maya makes her flame jump from finger to finger and that's enough.

They're the same age, she finds out sometime later. It doesn't really matter much, but it's a fact worth noting. Riley starts to open up after a while, and soon enough they're best friends. The rest of the pack mould around them, the orphaned kitsune and the young wolf with nowhere else to go. This is family now.

Bennett does some investigating in his spare time and finds out that the hunters took Riley's parents as well. He doesn't know if it's the same hunters from a year ago, but tries to hide it from Maya anyway. She finds out herself, like she always does. Riley doesn't quite understand the concept of hunters just yet, but Maya has had to grow up way too fast for her own liking, and so she is determined to keep her girl protected for as long as possible.

Riley wakes up one night, crying silently, too scared to tell anyone what she saw in her nightmare.

After that, Maya never really leaves her side.

**//**

Once high school begins, they spend a lot of time reading together, or really it's Riley who reads. Maya simply lies next to her and looks at the sky or hums a song quietly. They're usually found in a quiet portion of the forest just outside of town, just deep enough so that any tourists wouldn't stumble upon them accidentally but not so far in that they wouldn't be able to find their way out.

Sometimes Riley reads out loud for Maya to hear, when she's not currently preoccupied with anything boring or old. Maya much prefers newer literature, especially those where the characters go on a semblance of adventure. There's never a dull moment in those books, no matter how horrible the writing may be. She never says it out loud, but she often compares the characters to Riley and herself. It'll be so much nicer, she thinks, to live in a fictional environment.

They grow up around books, which Bennett always seems to find 'lying around' as he says. Riley has a growing pile which she keeps adding to; Maya doesn't know how she organises it because it's always looked like a big mess to her but Riley somehow manages to find the book she wants to read in two and a half seconds. Maya picks one or two to read by herself sometimes, memorises quotes that she takes a liking to, recites them to Riley just to see her smile.

More often than not, when Maya crawls out of one of her solitary moods, she goes looking for Riley in their reading spot. Her best friend is always there, propped up against a log with a book in her lap. Maya walks over and settles herself next to Riley, smiling when she adjusts herself so they fit more properly together. They fall asleep on each other until the sun goes down and it's time to go home.

**//**

Riley finds Pluto on a hot summer night, fresh out of sophomore year. Not the real Pluto, of course, that's much too far to see with the naked eye. She finds Pluto in one of her books, it's an old one which was published when Pluto was still a planet. She's fascinated with it, Maya almost doesn’t have the heart to tell her that it isn't a planet anymore. She can't lie to Riley, though, and so the truth spills out whether she wants it to or not.

They spend plenty of nights out under the stars after that, finding constellations and speculating where the planets might be. Maya thinks Riley's taken the news remarkably well, for a girl who believes in everything; she had been rather enchanted by the small planet for quite some time. Maya broaches the topic one night, a month or so after the revelation that Pluto is no longer a planet.

"Do you still believe in Pluto? After, you know, the not-a-planet thing."

Riley turns to look at her, cocking her head as she thinks. She's never been the spontaneous one, that's always been Maya. Riley thinks about what she says, one of the best things about her is how she never gives you an answer she doesn't absolutely believe in.

"I think I like Pluto because she reminds me so much of you," she says, at length. Maya isn't often rendered silent but this is one of those moments. Of course, many of said moments usually include Riley, she's used to it by now.

"Me?"

"Yeah, if you asked me why I probably wouldn't be able to give you a good answer, but I think the reason I like Pluto so much is because I love you, and it reminds me of you. So the answer is yes, I will always believe in Pluto, because I will always believe in you."

Maya plays with her hands for a moment, twirling a blade of grass between her fingers. There is a pause, though it isn't uncomfortable, nothing is ever uncomfortable between them. Riley knows that Maya isn't as good at expressing herself, and it takes time for her to filter through the information that she's gotten.

"I love you, too," she decides, is the best possible response she can give.

And that's all it takes, really, one or two brazen showcases of emotion. That's all it takes for them to realize what this is turning into, they've worn their hearts on their sleeves long enough. Maya kisses Riley, or maybe it's the other way around, who can say really? What matters is that one kisses the other and both of them finally acknowledge that they were never destined for mere friendship.

(Maya thinks, later, that she's lived her entire life for this one moment. Riley agrees, in her own funny way)

**//**

Maya comes home one day, walking with a limp and trying to hide her bloody knuckles. Riley notices immediately and yells at her for a bit, which attracts Bennett's attention. He squints at her for a minute before asking her to stay where she is and stalking off somewhere. Maya huffs and collapses onto her bed, closing her eyes as Riley bandages her hands.

Maya gets into fights more often than she doesn't, but coming home bearing scars of her most recent skirmish isn't something that she likes to do. As a kitsune, she's been trying to learn how to control the flames that are at her disposal, it's easier said than done and maybe sometimes she goes looking for fights on purpose but no one can blame her for wanting to master her powers.

Riley tucks the ends of the bandages in and curls up next to Maya on the bed, resting her head on her shoulder.

"I really wish you would do this less often."

"I know," Maya says, closing her eyes, "I wish I did it less often too."

Bennett chooses this moment to come back and he smirks at them until Maya gives him the finger and he pretends to be angry. Riley just laughs silently and cuddles closer to her, Maya can't say that she minds that much.

"Where did you go?" Maya asks, suddenly curious.

"I went to get these," Bennett says, holding up two swords that are probably just a little shorter than Maya's entire body.

"Who are you killing? And don't you have like, claws or something?"

"Well, preferably no one, and these aren't for me. They're for you."

At this point Riley sits up and frowns, crossing her arms. Maya hefts herself up after her girlfriend, resting her chin on Riley's shoulder.

"For me?"

Bennett places the swords down at the foot of the bed and grins. "Yeah, I reckon none of us will be able to stop you from going out and starting a war, so if you're going to fight things, you might as well have something other than your fists to defend yourself."

A smirk spreads across Maya's face as she reaches for the swords, scimitars really, careful not to damage her hands even more than she already has. Riley goes after her, narrowing her eyes suspiciously at the swords.

"And they'll keep her safe?"

Bennett shrugs, "If she learns how to use them properly."

Maya picks one up and tests its weight, smile stretching wider. Riley rolls her eyes but smiles as well, learning over Maya's shoulder to peer at the swords herself. Maya turns to kiss her sweetly and she laughs, sitting back on her heels and leaning against Maya's back.

Bennett perks up like he just remembered something, "None of us know how to use swords properly, that's properly why these two were lying in the corner. You're going to have to teach yourself or search up some tutorials or whatever you kids do these days."

Maya shrugs, "Oh I could do that, it can't be that hard."

It turns out, she's actually quite naturally gifted at fighting with dual scimitars. They hang on her back because she's too short to wear them at her waist. Riley takes every opportunity to tease her about it, but Maya knows that her girlfriend is secretly impressed at the fact that she's managed to find a way to manipulate her blue flames into coating the blades of her swords.

**//**

The sound of her sword whipping through the air is enough cause for Maya to grin. She's been practising with dummies to improve both her offense and defence. Bennett, for some reason, has these mannequins that he keeps giving her for her training. She doesn’t really mind because that means she doesn’t need to constantly fight a tree but one does wonder where he gets all these things.

Riley's lying on her back about five feet away, reading another one of her books while Maya practises. She pauses for a moment, steadying the straw dummy with a hand as she watches Riley flip a page. The afternoon sun slices through the clouds at just the right angle and Maya finds herself itching to sketch her as she is, lying on a picnic blanket and humming softly. She blinks once and mentally photographs the image to put away for later.

Her swords spin in her hands as she gears herself up to practice one of her newer moves. It's a mixture of offense and defence and leaves Maya with the option of either running away or going in for the kill. She doesn't fancy doing either of those, so she's just using the move to improve her agility. It ends with the sword slicing at the straw dummy and Maya stumbling forward because she's two inches behind where she's supposed to be.

She curses softly, glaring at the ground. Riley's at her side in an instant, hands running up and down her arms. Maya lets out a breath she doesn’t know she's been holding, and drops her swords to the ground, leaning back into Riley's arms.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine. I'm fine now."

There's a pause, and then-

"How did you know?" Maya is, of course, referring to the fact that Riley had been five feet away, all her concentration on her book her move had failed. It was a little illogical for her to have known that Maya needed a little emotional support.

Riley shrugs, the movement jostling Maya's shoulders as well because her arms are still wrapped somewhere underneath her ribcage. "I don't know, I guess I felt something?"

"You mean, you felt what I was feeling."

"If you put it that way it seems completely illogical but, I suppose yeah."

Maya turns around and kisses Riley softly, her arms reaching to twine around the other girl's neck. "I think I know why," she whispers into her mouth.

"Mmm, why?"

"We're special." Maya pulls back and winks, sliding out of Riley's arms and darting behind the straw dummy in a second, sticking her tongue out cheekily.

Riley laughs and chases after her. Maya's swords lie forgotten on the forest floor.

**//**

When Riley's eyes flash gold and her teeth sharpen to a point, Maya is always there to tangle their fingers together, pressing her body against Riley's side comfortingly. Bennett taught them about anchors early on in their lives together, explaining the logistics of it in the simplest terms possible. Riley had picked Maya almost immediately, and Bennett had smiled. Having someone real has its advantages and disadvantages, but he can't say he didn't expect this.

Riley glues herself to Maya's side just before the sun goes down, and they go to their reading spot and settle comfortably against the log. The moon rises and Riley's hands tense and there is always a minute or two where Maya can hear the frantic beating of her heart before everything clams down. They stare at the stars and smile when they remember Pluto.

Maya always worries over the fact that one night she might not be enough to keep her girl grounded. Riley tells her not to be silly, smiling softly as she turns to rest her head on Maya's shoulder. It's like a small victory, the fact that the one night that is supposed to tear them apart is actually pulling them together. Maya likes overthrowing metaphorical patriarchies, Riley likes seeing Maya smile.

It's gotten easier over the years, for Riley to remember that some part of her is still human. Maya doesn't let go of her hand the entire night, and Riley tells herself that she will not hurt this girl who has already been hurt too many times before. She keeps herself grounded with the thought of silver eyes and blue flames, the image of the girl she fell in love with, who she will always be in love with. Maya spends the night in Riley's arms, telling stories and humming softly.

They greet the morning no worse for wear, fingers still intertwined.

**//**

Maya starts to go on scouting missions with Bennett once he's satisfied with her sword skills. Nothing usually happens in their city, if you don't count the occasional wendigo. They get back to the apartment and Maya is starving because she hasn't eaten since breakfast and it's almost four in the afternoon. Bennett is laughing at her and holding the bag of chicken away from her face teasingly. When they turn the corner that leads to their corridor, his smile fades away and the key is in the lock faster than she can comprehend.

The door swings open and Maya blanches because there is _so much blood_ on the floor and splattered across the walls. Bennett's breath hitches and she follows his gaze to the couch, where Jay Hale's body is lying askew, the gash on his stomach still oozing blood. Jay Hale, who had been laughing an hour ago when they phoned home to ask whether they should get takeout. Jay Hale, who had clocked in his rest day by offering to stay at home while Riley finished her homework.

Speaking of which-

"Where's Riley?" Maya's voice rips out of her throat, strangled and frantic as she darts through the apartment, slamming doors open. She almost makes it out the door because she has to find Riley, she has to find her, but Elizabeth and Aiden appear at the threshold of the apartment just in time to stop her from rushing out. She thrashes against their grip, blue eyes flashing silver as her arms start to heat up.

Bennett steps forward, utilising his alpha status to make sure Eli and Aiden don't let go of her. His gaze is harder than she's ever seen. "Maya stop, we don't know where she is."

"She- she could be dead somewhere I need to find her, I need to find her, _let go of me I need to find her._ "

"She isn't dead, if they wanted to kill her, her body would be lying there next to Jay's. Listen to me Maya, we will find her, you have to trust us."

Maya goes limp and the two other wolves let her go gently, allowing her to sink to the floor and sit with her legs crossed, breathing still ragged.

"Can I trust you not to go running off until we know more?"

Maya takes a shuddering breath, and the soft blue glow around her starts to wane. "Yeah, okay, fine."

**//**

It's not easy to just sit and wait when she knows Riley is out there somewhere, with whoever took her doing who knows what with her. The only thing that keeps her from going insane is that fact that they don't want Riley dead, because Bennett was right. If they wanted Riley dead, they would've found her body lying next to Jay's. They had cleaned up the mess as best as they could, though Maya still refrains from going anywhere near the couch.

The burial is a hushed affair, though anyone who matters is there when it happens. Maya leaves before the eulogies begin, she doesn't want to hear about what they want to remember. She doesn't want to believe that Jay is gone. While Bennett had been Maya's father figure, Jay had been Riley's, even though for his age he was probably more her older brother than anything else.

Losing Jay is like rubbing salt into the wound of Riley's kidnapping. It's difficult to imagine a life without Jay's laughter waking you up at three in the morning at least once a week. He's always been the most light-hearted out of the bunch, without Jay around everyone just keeps to their part of the apartment, working on tracking the people who took Riley.

Maya takes to walking in the forest, being cooped up in a small area with seve- six, six other people is a little claustrophobic, even with her small stature, especially with her small stature. When no one needs her, she tackles the forest paths with a vengeance. It's quiet there, with the occasional woodland creature hopping into her vision. Nature is calming, she begins to see why it's Bennett's anchor to the world.

Maya usually stays away from the parts of the forest that hold her memories with Riley, their reading spot by the log, and the small lake that no one else really knows about. It probably seems logical that she wants to spend all her time there, but Maya has never been a very logical person and if she even sees the log she's probably going to set the entire forest on fire by accident.

That which is exactly what happens a few seconds later when she stumbles into the clearing that holds the lake. Maya stares at it for a moment and before she knows it her arms are coated in blue flames and the bushes next to the lake have caught fire. She curses loudly, concentrating on not thinking about anything as she goes to the lake and tries to put the fire out by splashing water on it.

It works, though the smoke has already attracted fire engine sirens, she sighs and hightails it out of there before anyone can question her as to how she managed to start a fire without any matches or a lighter of any sort. Bennett probably already knows it's happened, he somehow always manages to find out about anything she's done that's wrong within the first half a second of the incident occurring.

Maya sits on a tree stump, watching as the firemen scrutinise the charred bushes. Her phone dings and she digs it out of her pocket, getting up and veering to the path that'll bring her back home. The screen lights up with a text from Bennett when she hits the home button.

 **Bennett (ur dad), 14:57**  
found her

She's home within the next three minutes, crashing through the door as the clock strikes three. They're all standing around the tiny kitchen table, which is hidden underneath a giant map. Maya ducks under Aiden's arm so she can see properly, there's a building about a mile outside the city limits that has a big red circle around it. Bennett is pointing at it and muttering something under his breath. It's probably a plan, she doesn’t have time for plans.

Maya blows out the door faster than she came in, swords glowing blue on her back. She promised not to run off until they knew more, they know more now.

**//**

It occurs to her, when she's halfway to the building on her motorbike, that she should probably have waited to hear what Bennet's plan was. It doesn't help now though, so she just guns the engine and grits her teeth. Maya recognises the area, it's hunter territory, which means that Riley was taken by hunters. They took both her parents and Riley's parents, she isn't about to let them take Riley away from her too. The hunters have taken too much, it's time for them to pay it all back.

The building turns out to be an abandoned warehouse, and Maya spares a few seconds wondering why all the shady villains like abandoned warehouses, it's getting old. There's no one guarding the perimeter, but she unsheathes her swords anyway. Bennett isn't going to get here until he's concocted a plan to save both her and Riley without getting anyone hurt. Maya doesn't have that kind of time.

She walks into the building, blue eyes flickering around. There's no one here, and it looks like no one's been here for the last three dozen years. She flicks the sword in her right hand and flames blaze up from the hilt to coat the blade; in the incandescent glow, she can see footprints lining the floor.

 _Amateurs_ , she thinks, before following the dusty prints. They lead to a door, and she studies it for a moment, leaning forward to squint at the keypad. There's a second of silence, and then the door is bursting into flames and burning away. Really, if they wanted to protect something, they wouldn't install a wooden door at the entrance.

Maya sets one foot in the door and suddenly the stairway blazes with light. The stairs are roughly cut, as if someone wanted to complete the job as fast as possible. A whirring noise causes her to tense before a section of the stone wall slides open and a screen reveals itself to sit at her eye-level. It emits a mechanical voice that asks her to identify herself by reciting the phrase that's being shown. She stabs it with one of her swords and watches as it falls to the floor.

Alarms start blaring and the stairwell is lit with red light, Maya curses under her breath before taking the stairs three at a time. Whatever these people are hiding, they have it underground, and if everything is underground then so is Riley. And Maya is going to get to her.

**//**

She encounters the first guard before the stairs even finish, he lunges at her and she sidesteps, turning around to kick him in the gut, not bothering to stay and watch him groan on the floor. Both her swords are alight with flames now, and the guards are never-ending but she has to get to Riley so Maya concentrates on not getting hit in any vital organs. It's a good plan.

Somewhere along the way, they promote themselves from steel batons and crossbows to tasers and guns. Maya's aware that her heart is beating irregularly and she's walking with a limp and one of her ribs is probably broken but all she can hear is Riley's voice in her ears so she grits her teeth and charges them all. Half the hallway is alight with blue fire and she's kicking and punching and slicing and all she knows is she needs to get to _Riley_ she needs to get past all these idiots and to _Riley_ so she storms on.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, there is a voice that sounds suspiciously like Bennett's telling her to slow down and make sure she isn't going to bleed out on to the floor and die right before she gets to Riley. She stops as the last guard from this batch groans and slumps to the floor and checks herself. The rib still hurts, that's going to take a while to heal, and there's a gash above her eye but that's probably it-

Oh.

Oh okay the world is spinning.

Maya leans back against one of the cold walls and slides to the ground, scimitars clattering against the floor next to her. There appears to be some sort of wound on her side and it's been oozing blood for the past minute or so without her notice. One of those hunter-guards must have managed to injure her. The entire building is quiet, and she thinks she might actually have killed every single person in the facility. It's a gruesome thought, Maya doesn't want to dwell on it.

She pulls herself to her feet, picking up her swords as she goes. One of the fallen bodies groan from behind her and she stamps on its head without looking, popping her knuckles before continuing on. There's just one more door left, and she hobbles toward it, burning up the keypad and nudging it open with her shoulder. It swings open with a swish and reveals what appears to be a science lab-slash-surgery room.

There's a cot sitting in the middle of all the equipment, and a doctor standing in front of it. He turns around when she steps in and levels a syringe at her. Maya doesn't know what he plans to do with it, because it's empty. She sighs and makes short work of him, not even flinching when the body hits the floor with a squelching sound. The instruments surrounding the cot scare her, they look like they belong in a torture chamber rather than a hospital, or whatever this is.

Maya realizes she should have maybe asked the doctor why they had taken Riley in the first place, but he's dead now and that door is closed. Maybe the rest of the pack will be able to find more information when they sweep the area, Bennett has always been able to find things he isn't supposed to. She steps around the doctor's body to get closer to the cot, tensing when she sees there's someone lying on it but completely relaxing once she's close enough to identify the person.

It's Riley, and she's alive and Maya is so relieved that the her scimitars slide from her grip to land on the floor and she's at the bedside in half a second. Maya isn't aware she's crying until her tears are staining the sheets on the cot. Riley is here and she's alive and she's sitting up and oh god she's so relieved that they haven't done anything to her.

"Hey honey, I'm sorry I'm late."

And it really does feel like a fairytale ending, it does, it feels like everything has just fallen into place and Maya is so ready to go home and take a shower and fall asleep next to Riley but-

"Honey? Are you okay? You're kinda scaring me here."

Riley's brown eyes are blank and she appears to be gripping something very hard in her left hand, though Maya can't quite see what it is. She steps back to let Riley get off the bed and it's then that she notices the small puncture wound on the inside of her right elbow. It takes her a fraction of a second to connect the puncture- _needle_ wound to the syringe that the doctor had been holding.

And then she's staring down the barrel of a gun.

**//**

"Riley, honey, _no_. Riles? Listen to me Riley, put it down nice and gently now. Riles? Honey?"

Maya is backing up slowly, inching toward the general area where she dropped her swords. She knows she'd let Riley shoot her half a dozen times rather than attack her in any way but maybe Maya's fast enough to deflect a bullet with her swords. Maybe? She's never tried. She's never needed to try, no one has ever pointed a gun at her heart.

"Riley please, I love you, don't do this. Something in that syringe is affecting you. _Please._ "

Riley's beautiful eyes are still blank and she's holding the gun with both hands now. Maya's backed up against the wall and she's holding both her scimitars in her hands and she's raised them to- what? She doesn’t know what she wants to accomplish, and Riley still isn't smiling. Why isn't she smiling?

"Riley, honey, please. Don't kill me, you don't want to kill me, they've done something to you please Riley."

She's on the floor now and the gun is still trained on her heart and Maya knows there's no way she'll be able to use her swords to do anything and Riley is walking toward her slowly, unblinkingly.

"Honey, honey I love you, don't do this."  
  
The squeeze of the trigger is silent, and Maya has completely given up by now. At least Riley is alive, as long as she's safe, maybe Bennett can find a way to reverse the effects of whatever the syringe contained before it's too late.

"I love you."

**//**

(Riley's hands shake when she pulls the trigger. Somewhere in the forefront of her hazy mind, she hears Maya's voice, and she grasps onto it. Nothing makes sense and she can't feel her arms but Riley is not built to hold a gun and so her hands shake when she pulls the trigger.

The resounding bang knocks her backward and she slams into the metal wheels of the cot. When she gets up the effects of the syringe are gone and she's shaking her head to clear it but the smell of blood in the room is horrible and she looks up-

and shrieks because oh my god. Maya is slumped against the wall and she's alive but her _shoulder_. It's a bullet wound, and, trembling, Riley looks at the gun in her hands.

And maybe that's the moment when the entire world starts to fall apart around her. She throws the gun as far as she can, which is further than she thought she could throw it, maybe it's the full moon, before sliding over to sit next to Maya)

**//**

Wow getting shot is a lot more painful than she thought it would be. Maya's vision clears and Riley is sitting next to her and she's still not smiling but at least her eyes are clear now. Maya's just happy Riley is back.

"Peaches? Oh my god peaches, I'm so sorry, I didn't know what I was doing? I'm so sorry peaches please don't die, I love you, you can't die."

"I'm not going to die, Riles."

That might be a lie, her vision is tunneling and she possibly can't feel her right shoulder anymore.

"I'm just, so sorry? I don't even know what happened, I just woke up? And he was putting something in my arm and I sort of lost it? I don't know what I was doing I'm just so sorry peaches, please don't die." Riley's voice breaks and Maya thinks her heart is going to go the same way. If her girlfriend isn't going to smile then she will.

"I'll be fine Riley, just …. just fine." Everything's going hazy but it feels exactly like falling asleep so it should be alright to just close her eyes right? It feels alright.

"Maya? Peaches? Maya no, you have to stay awake, please stay awake."

"S'all good. I'm just … tired. Sleep is good, yeah?" Maya's eyes are definitely close now, but the darkness is soft and everything feels warm and-

okay a little bit too warm. Her shoulder feels like it's heating up a bit too much, speaking of which, so does her ribcage. She peels her eyes open to find Riley crying into her shoulder.

"What's wrong, honey?"

Her ribs definitely feel weird, she's pretty sure one or two were broken before, but it feels like the bone is stitching itself back together, if that even makes sense. Maybe her brain died before she could.

"Riles? I think my injuries are healing itself?"

Riley's eyes are wide and her hands are fussing over her. "That's not- is that possible? I mean, I could hear your heartbeat slowing down, you were _dying_ peaches. Your super-healing can bring you back from death?"

"I don't know? I feel good though, I think I can stand."

She reaches for one of her swords and stabs it into the ground, using it as leverage to pull herself into a standing position. She feels fine, exactly like how she felt before she walked into the abandoned warehouse.

"I think I'm actually one hundred percent healthy."

"Okay but how is that even possible? I was literally listening to you die."

**//**

Bennett paces back and forth in front of the both of them. They've found a spot to settle down in while the rest of the pack roots through the warehouse, the basement really. Maya sits with her legs over Riley's lap and her head in the crook of the other girl's neck. It's been a long day, she's tired and not dead, and she really just wants to go to sleep.

"From what I understand, she was dying and then she wasn't."

Riley scrunches up her nose and Maya has to stop herself from doing the same thing to tease her. They've all had a long day. "Well that's probably what was happening? I don't even know anymore."

Bennett stops in front of them. "Do you guys remember that talk we had about anchors? How it helps Riley during the full moon to have something to hold onto?"

Riley nods, Maya grumbles something in the affirmative.

"I think you guys have formed something like an emotional tether? Basically you literally can keep each other alive by feeling."

Maya doesn’t feel like understanding what he's saying, though she remembers an incident that happened about half a year ago when she had been practising her sword work. Riley sort of felt what she was feeling, or something along those lines. Maya's tired, she can deal with it tomorrow. Riley, on the other hand, is very much awake. "So what you're saying is that I brought her back to life."

 

"Well, yeah. I've read about emotional tethers before but they're really rare so I don't actually know all the logistics. We'll figure it out though." He winks at them and leaves to jog into the warehouse to round up the troops.

Maya yawns. Riley laughs.

"Thanks for saving my life, Riles."

"I was the one that _shot_ you. And besides, who said you could just storm in to save me like that? You could've _died_ , you almost did die. What am I supposed to do if you die? Who's going to help me on the full moon?"

"I'm not dead, plus you saved me in the end so now we're even, yay us. When can we go home?"

"Peaches. Don't ever risk your life to save mine again."

"Whatever you want."

"I'm not kidding."

"Okay."

" _Maya._ "

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

"That's great, when can we go home?"

Riley hums noncommittally, twisting their fingers together and leaning her head on Maya's. Bennett emerges from the warehouse with the rest of the pack behind him and he jerks his thumb toward the cars.

"Right now peaches, we can go home right now."

**Author's Note:**

> do you guys remember that friend that i yelled at about the hogwarts au ?? yeah the same friend managed to convince me to write an entire crossover for a fandom i'm not even in ,,,, this legit went from "check out this cool au" to "yeAH teen wolf crOssOVer" so i guess the moral of the story is to have friends that are in fandoms you're not. happy april, find me on tumblr @fightiingdragons


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